


Someone To Watch Over Me

by Fira21



Category: Avengers (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 14:50:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6055618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fira21/pseuds/Fira21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yet here he is, in the depths of his workshop, with the music from upstairs playing. The one song that drove him down here on repeat. 'There’s a saying old, says that love is blind. Still we’re often told seek and ye shall find.' How long had pops looked? Didn’t do him any fucking good did it? No, he just left him with years of shit fatherhood and a legacy for Tony to continue. So Tony kept looking and kept looking and look where it left him. He finished his father’s work, and the prize fucked him up even more. It should be surprisingly, but Tony is used to his father’s history coming back to bite him in the ass. 'He’s the big affair I cannot forget. Only man I ever think of with regret.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone To Watch Over Me

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr where I realized there was no formatting and was immediately horrified with myself. Which probably says something to how much I rely on italics but... C'est la vie.

So he drinks. He drinks and drinks and he hasn’t had a drink in at least a month and he thought he was  _ over _ this. He admits to himself, privately, never to others, that he knows this is something he’ll fight all his life, but still. He thought he was over the need to distract himself with booze, until he hits the low, and thinks about how despite what he’s accomplished, he has no idea how to actually live and function and thrive (you’re supposed to try and thrive right?) in a society that seems to have no room for him really. Not the real him anyway.

He’s not even sure he knows who he really is anymore. He never really knew. It’s why he drank so much. A little less genius, a little less money, and he can understand the people he passes on the street who ask for change. The one’s he knows are really looking for another escape.

He throws more and more money at detox centers and support groups, knowing he’ll never be able to go to one himself and wishing, viciously, that he could (the slander, the scandal, the personal deep-welling thickening depths of  _ shame _ that he wishes he were better than, oh god, he wishes he were better).

Still, there’s a party downstairs that normally he’d be in the thick of. A party where the music is catered to his tastes, the food is  _ divine _ , and the champagne is excellent. A party where the invitations are carefully cultivated to people he likes, or at least, he admits with not a little bit of self-deprecation, people he can stand, who can stand him, or who he can twirl around his finger in a rather enjoyable way.

Yet here he is, in the depths of his workshop, with the music from upstairs playing. The one song that drove him down here on repeat.  _ There’s a saying old, says that love is blind. Still we’re often told seek and ye shall find. _ How long had pops looked? Didn’t do him any fucking good did it? No, he just left him with years of shit fatherhood and a legacy for Tony to continue. So Tony kept looking and kept looking and look where it left him. He finished his father’s work, and the prize fucked him up even more. It should be surprisingly, but Tony is used to his father’s history coming back to bite him in the ass.  _ He’s the big affair I cannot forget. Only man I ever think of with regret. _

He sings along to the refrain mockingly to himself. His voice goes low and harsh with each swig of vodka and the icy burn feels appropriate. A man found in ice, whose very touch makes him feel like his skin is... reacting. He feels every second like he’s one step from shattering, just breathe on him.

He was lost in Afghanistan. He suffered through flaring, blazing heat. He thought that was the worst the world could throw at him. He never knew he had to be prepared for the sharp, stinging, cold that flays you open in an instant. He didn’t realize that was something that could even happen. He’s experienced the worst of heat, and the least of cold. He didn’t realize there was a chill that leeched into you until you burned. Or maybe he knew, scientifically, but he didn’t know- He didn’t think it would happen to him.

Steve could have told him of a cold that sears. Of lungs too weak to breathe and every breath a painful slap of a gasp. Of winters that suck the air from your mouth in the worst of nature’s fierce kisses. Skin that flays open, deep and red, at every exposed inch, that burns and burns and  _ burns _ , more than the worst of any heat. Steve was never a healthy child, and winters were a constant state of feeling like he was one step from fire.

They never tell you frostbite scorches down past your skin until you feel branded for life.

Was love supposed to hurt so badly? Maybe another person would ask but Tony knew the answer was always yes.

“Sounds familiar,” he hears and knocks over his glass. It shatters on the floor and he swears. He looks up to bright brilliant blue. Blue as-

His life is full of ice metaphors and he fucking hates it. He lived through sweating, skin-peeling sun. Why should he have to know the other side?

His hair is blonde, his eyes are blue, and they say his smile is sunshine. All Tony knows is that the entire world sees warmth, and all he sees is a cold, piercing metaphor. He will never tell Steve that his eyes should remind him of blue skies and sunshine, but instead remind him of- Of ice. It’s the worst fucking thing to think, and he can be callous, even cruel, but he could never admit that.

A man lost in time, lost in frozen wastelands; Tony is lost in a frozen wasteland of his own creation and can’t bear to bring anyone else down with him. Steve’s eyes chill him to the bone, and it  _ hurts _ . He’s trapped in his eyes and finds himself wanting. He’s wanting and he wants. He wants. He wants-

He is  _ really _ fucking drunk. The drunk where you wax poetics and everything feels like a fucking T.S Eliot poem: serious, and strange, and haunting. He’s no Eliot, he’s a drunken millionaire, hiding in his basement with friends he had to build out of circuits, and he’d say he hit a new low of pathetic, but he’d be lying.

Dum-E sweeps haphazardly at the glass on the floor with a broom and dustpan, as Tony grins. It’s easy to find the smile, harder to make it stick. “Thought Ella would be past your time.” He can play this off. He knows he can, he’s done it before.

“Ella?” His face is confused and lovely and fuck. Tony will need to pull himself in if he’s going to distract from this. He’s drunk, his stomach is lurching from more than just the booze, and if Steve motherfucking Rogers keeps standing in his workshop with such an honest expression, Tony is going to fuck this all up.

“Ella Fitzgerald,” He elaborates. There’s a moment where Steve’s eyebrows scrunch up before he nods.

“Sounds familiar but no, that’s not where I know this.” Tony just looks at him and Steve shrugs. “I just know.”

There’s a tinkling of glass as Dum-E empties his dustpan into a trash can, but it’s JARVIS that distracts him as he says, “If I may, Sir.” Tony looks up and nods. The song changes, same lyrics, same idea, but it’s-

“Judy Garland,” Tony murmurs. He looks over and Steve is smiling softly.

“Yeah, this one.” That smile will be his death.

“Though she’d be past your time too,” Tony says, and Steve shrugs. He’s getting better. Before, stuff like this would have raised his hackles. He would have bit at Tony, sharp and painful, for the memory of  _ before _ .

Tony wishes he would bite. He’s not sure what to do with this pliable, smiling, Steve Rogers.

Well no, there’s a part of him that knows. Another part of him though, the part that Rhodey started, the part the Pepper cultivated, the part the Avengers nourish, the  _ good _ part, that says he’s not allowed. He’s not allowed to despoil a national icon. He’s not allowed to ruin this last pure part of American ideals. He’s not allowed-

He’s not allowed Captain America. Steve Rogers. Both. Either.

Well- Not again, anyway. Not to  _ keep _ .

He gets distracted by the music again.  _ Oh, how I need. Someone to watch over me. _ He hums along, drunk and distracted. It takes him a minute to realize Steve is joining him. “Apropos, isn’t it?” Steve asks.

Tony has to bite his tongue before he asks who even uses the word ‘apropos’ anymore. “Hmm?” He says instead. Pretend you’re distracted. Pretend you don’t care. Steve doesn’t know you’ve spent the last hour down here listening to the same song, drinking, hoping, hurting.

The song starts again. “Big affair I can’t forget. Apropos.”

There’s a piercing something that lodges it’s way, painful and carving, into his heart. He looks down to see his reactor humming. It’s not a shrapnel shard. He wishes it were. “Yeah.” His voice comes out on a croak, and he coughs. “Well-” He gives up. He doesn’t even know what to say to that. He looks up to the ceiling again. At JARVIS? At the heavens? He doesn’t believe in a God anymore but he’ll put faith in JARVIS, put faith in his own design, so likely the former. Does that make him the worst kind of heathen? He doesn’t see himself as God, but he’ll trust his own inventions, trust wires and electricity before any higher power.

He jumps at the unexpected warmth on his shoulder. Steve’s hand. Broad and encompassing and his fingers resting right at his collarbone. Can he feel where Tony’s breath picks up? He has to. No one could miss it. Even Tony can feel it. Deep into his bones past where alcohol should make him loose. He’s rigid, tense. He could break with one wrong movement.

Or one wrong word. “Tony.”

He can’t deny him. He looks over and up. Up up up. Steve looks down at him with bright blue eyes and an expression that has Tony freezing. Apropos. A big affair.

“I’ve never forgotten, you know,” Steve says, slowly, carefully, scared.

Both of them at their worst and best. Neither drunk, but Tony pretending he is, and Steve not calling him out. Drawn curtains, and dark rooms, and long, searching kisses in the dark. Both begging, pleading, for each other.

No acknowledgement in the morning. Tony thinking he’s ruined it all. Steve, he never asked Steve how he felt. He figured Steve knew the mistake they both made.

He’s not good enough for Captain America. Or Steve Rogers.

The way Steve looks at him though. Right now. It makes him wonder- But no, that’s the alcohol talking. The way it wasn’t that night, that first night.  _ Tony, you- Steve, please- Tony, I need- Anything, Steve, anything, I swear, I’ll give- Tony I- Steve I- Please. _

“Tony, I-” Steve cuts off and Tony breathes carefully.

_ Oh how I need- _

He leans down, Tony is helpless but to lean up. His mouth is warm, even as the touch cuts him open to the core. He feels exposed, every raw inch of him laid bare to the elements. The frozen wasteland that is love, unrequited and- But-

“You’re too drunk for this,” Steve murmurs against his lips.

Tony laughs. “You’re too sober.”

“No.” It brings Tony up short, the definite fierceness in Steve’s voice. “No, never. I want- I’ve always-” He kisses Tony again, and Tony’s chest aches as he hiccups in a sharp breath. “Tomorrow?” Steve asks.

Tony chokes on a laugh. “Tonight, if you-”

“You’re drunk.”

He shakes his head and pulls Steve in. “No. Not enough. Not for-” That’s not the point though is it? “It can wait.” It’s the hardest thing he’s ever said. Waiting means this is something to wait  _ for _ . Something  _ important _ . “Until- But- For tonight. If you wanted- Stay?” How unrequited is this? He wants to ask himself. He feels like his very soul is flayed open and ready to be maimed, but Steve is so careful. So gentle. He doesn’t know what to do with this.

He’s supposed to be cold. Painful. This hurts, but not the way it should.

He doesn’t have the words, or the coherency. Maybe Steve is right in that he’s too drunk for this. Still, he doesn’t think he’ll regret this in the morning. Not like last time. Or maybe he will. Who knows. Right now he’s been drinking, a melody repeats in his ears like the ghosts he can’t forget, and Steve- Steve is here.

For now it’s enough.

“Yes. Tony, I-  _ Yes _ .” Steve helps him upstairs, and there’s fumbling. There’s aspirin, and there’s water, and the careful change of clothes. There’s maybe, in the secrets of midnight, a careful, soft, kiss.

In the morning, maybe, there will be regrets. For now, Tony curls himself into Steve, Steve reaching back. Both of them like closed parentheses, parallel, connected.

(“What changed your mind?” Tony whispers, voice still more a croak than tender. Still too broken for any of this.

“Never changed my mind,” Steve murmurs. “Just got my head on straight.” Tony would laugh at the idea of someone thinking that being with  _ him _ was a sane decision, but Steve kisses him again. “I was too broken before.”

It takes Tony a long time to respond. “I’m still broken.

“That’s okay. I took my time. You can have yours. With me, if you’ll let me.”

Tony does laugh then, soft and painful. Morning light is beginning to flicker through his curtains and Steve’s eyelashes are long and black and pitch and his eyes-

“If I let you. Steve- I could never let you go.”

Steve smiles, and his eyes are as blue as sunshine.)

_ Someone to watch over me. _


End file.
